Russia – Ukraine Talks Begin as Russian Advancement Slowed Down

Manas Dasgupta

NEW DELHI. Feb 28: Amidst reports that the Russian forces have seized two small cities in South-Eastern Ukraine and the area around a nuclear power plant, talks began between the two warring nations on Monday at the Belarussian border, Ukrainian presidential advisor Mykhailo Podolyak said.

As Russia finds itself increasingly isolated globally, it has raised the nuclear threat amid bitter criticism from the West, Russia said it wanted to reach an agreement with Ukraine, while the Ukraine presidency said it wanted an “immediate ceasefire” and withdrawal of Russian troops. The Ukraine president Volodymr Zelenskyy said he really did not expect much of a positive outcome from the talks with Russia but wanted to give the opportunity a try to restore peace. He said Ukraine’s goal for the talks was an immediate ceasefire and the withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukraine. He has also urged Russian soldiers to lay down their weapons and desert as Ukrainian and Russian delegations were set to hold talks on Moscow’s invasion.

Before the talks started, the Kremlin said it would not declare its official position as Moscow’s assault against Ukraine went into a fifth day. “I suggest we wait for the talks,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. “I would not declare any negotiating positions.”

Ukraine agreed to the talks around the same time as Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered defence chiefs to put for nuclear “deterrent forces” on high alert, a move slammed by the US as “manufacturing threats that don’t exist” because his “invasion of Ukraine has been halted.”

The talks are being held at Ukraine’s border with Belarus — near the Chernobyl exclusion zone — after a call between President Zelenskyy and Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko. Ukraine had earlier refused to talk in Belarus, where Russian troops were stationed before the invasion.

Zelenskyy has called for ‘immediate’ EU membership for Ukraine. He also said Ukraine would release prisoners with military experience if they were willing to join the fight against Russia. Dozens of people were killed in rocket strikes by Russian forces on the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Monday morning, said Ukrainian interior ministry adviser Anton Herashchenko, reports news agency Reuters. The United Nations earlier said that 102 civilians, including seven children, have been killed after Russia attacked Ukraine.

The Ukrainian military said on Monday that Russian troops had slowed down “the pace of the offensive” as Moscow’s assault against Ukraine went into its fifth day. Russia has claimed air superiority in Ukraine and alleged that Ukraine was using civilians as human “shields.”

Dozens of people were killed in rocket strikes by Russian forces on the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Monday morning, Ukrainian interior ministry adviser Anton Herashchenko said. “Kharkiv has just been massively fired upon by grads (rockets). Dozens of dead and hundreds of wounded,” he said.

Russia’s defence ministry, however, claimed its forces had taken over the towns of Berdyansk and Enerhodar in Ukraine’s south-eastern Zaporizhzhya region as well as the area around the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, media reports said. The plant’s operations continued normally, it said.

Russia’s invasion force, however, has lost momentum and is having logistical and supply problems after facing stiff Ukrainian resistance, the White House claims. But Russia military has claimed air superiority in Ukraine and alleged that Ukraine is using civilians as human “shield.”

The Russian forces ran into stiff resistance elsewhere as Moscow’s diplomatic and economic isolation deepened. After four days of fighting, a Russian advance has gone more slowly than some expected. President Vladimir Putin on Thursday launched the biggest assault on a European state since World War Two and put Russia’s nuclear deterrent on high alert on Sunday in the face of a barrage of Western-led reprisals. The Ukrainian authorities claimed that Russian ground forces’ attempts to capture major urban centres had been repelled.

The Russian military said residents of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv can use a safe corridor to leave the city if they want. Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said Monday that Kyiv residents can safely use a highway leading to Vasylkiv just southwest of the Ukrainian capital. The statement came as fighting raged in various parts of the Ukrainian capital, with Ukrainian authorities saying that they were fighting small groups of Russian forces in various sectors of the capital.

Under huge pressures from the US and the European countries imposing economic sanctions. Russia’s central bank announced Monday it was raising its key interest rate to 20 per cent from 9.5 per cent as the West hit the country with sanctions over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. The ruble has collapsed against the dollar and the euro on Moscow Stock Exchange.

While Ukraine mounted a spirited defence, the European Union has committed to sending fighter jets to Ukraine at Kyiv’s request to help it counter the Russian air and land assault. Ukraine has also held a meeting with the G7 foreign ministers requesting assistance in the war.

The UN rights boss Bachelet has said at least 102 civilians, including seven children, have died in Ukraine since the Russian invasion began. Moreover, 304 have been injured. She added that the real figure may well be “considerably higher.”

The Ukrainian President on Monday asked the European Union to allow Ukraine to gain membership under a special procedure immediately as it defends itself from invasion by Russian forces. “Our goal is to be with all Europeans and, most importantly, to be equal. I’m sure that’s fair. I am sure we deserve it,” he said in a video speech shared on social media.

More than half a million refugees have now fled Ukraine for the neighbouring countries, says Filippo Grandi, the head of the U.N. refugee agency. At least 300,000 Ukrainian refugees have entered the European Union so far, and the bloc needs to prepare for millions more, they said. EU members Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Hungary have land borders with Ukraine. They file into neighbouring countries by the hundreds of thousands clutching children in one arm, belongings in the other. And they’re being heartily welcomed, by leaders of countries like Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Moldova and Romania.
But while the hospitality has been applauded, it has also highlighted stark differences in treatment given to migrants and refugees from the Middle East and Africa, particularly Syrians who came in 2015. Some of the language from these leaders has been disturbing to them, and deeply hurtful.

“These are not the refugees we are used to…these people are Europeans,” Bulgarian President Rumen Radev told journalists earlier this week, of the Ukrainians. “These people are intelligent, they are educated people…This is not the refugee wave we have been used to, people we were not sure about their identity, people with unclear pasts, who could have been even terrorists…” “In other words,” he added, “there is not a single European country now which is afraid of the current wave of refugees.” Syrian journalist Okba Mohammad said the statement “mixes racism and Islamophobia.”

The EU is preparing to grant Ukrainians who flee the war, the right to stay and work in the 27-nation bloc for up to three years, senior EU and French officials said, thanking volunteers at the borders for helping those who arrive.

India, meanwhile, has abstained from another vote on Ukraine at the UN as evacuation efforts get challenging at the borders even as New Delhi welcomed Moscow and Kyiv’s decision to hold talks at the Belarus border. The United Nations Security Council Monday is set to hold a  rare special emergency session of the UN General Assembly on the ongoing crisis and then vote on a resolution later this week to “hold Russia accountable” for the violation of the UN charter. During a procedural vote to hold the meeting, 11 countries voted in favour; India, China and the UAE abstained from voting and Russia voted against the resolution.

Additionally, the UNSC will also be meeting on Monday to discuss the humanitarian impact of the invasion. The Voting pattern was the same as it was during a resolution on condemning the “Russian Aggression” which had also failed due to Russian veto.

“It is regrettable that the situation in Ukraine has worsened further since the Council last convened on this matter,” India’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador T S Tirumurti, said and added, “There is no other choice but to return to the path of diplomacy and dialogue.” “We welcome today’s announcement by both sides to hold talks at the Belarus border,” he said.

The ambassador said India continues to be deeply concerned about the safety and security of Indian nationals, including a large number of Indian students, who are still stranded in Ukraine.

“Our evacuation efforts have been adversely impacted by the complex and uncertain situation at the border crossings. It is important to maintain an uninterrupted and predictable movement of people. It is an urgent humanitarian necessity that must be immediately addressed,” he said.

At a high level meeting chaired by the prime minister Narendra Modi in Delhi, India decided to send four ministers to Ukraine’s neighbouring countries to help in the evacuation of the Indians stranded in Ukraine.

Protests are also building up against the invasion. Hundreds of thousands of people are taking part in solidarity marches from Berlin to Baghdad to Quito. Within Russia, over 5,000 people have been arrested for demonstrating against the attack.

European Union members have announced new sanctions and assured Ukraine of more military support in the coming days. The countries will even send fighter jets to help Ukraine counter the Russian assault, the bloc’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Sunday.